Guest Post: On The Frontline

Orla Shanaghy asks why, when it comes to gender issues, Irish telly is still in black and white….

It was with great reluctance that I turned on my TV last night to watch the latest episode of RTE’s The Frontline. Not because I wasn’t interested in the topics (I was), or because Pat Kenny and John Waters don’t irritate me (they do). I am always reluctant to tune in to The Frontline and other current affairs discussion programs like it because their false-dichotomy format makes me physically squirm.

Pat's Chat

Take last night’s program, titled “Do women need a quota to get ahead in business and politics?” As the producers clearly recognise, there is no better vehicle for a good false dichotomy and the ensuing media-friendly spat than a gender-related issue.

In the arena sat, on the “men’s” side, John Waters, prominent advocate of men’s rights. On the supposedly opposing, “women’s” side, sat Camille Loftus of the National Women’s Council. The audience speakers had, as always, been selected on the basis of which “side” of the “argument” they stood. Pat Kenny as facilitator did excellently what he is paid to do: ensuring that the debate never strayed far from black-versus-white. For example, he lead in to the first audience speaker, Crumlin youth worker Jody Garry, with “The whole business of ‘It’s a man’s world – oh no it’s not…’”. When Rosemary McCabe, also in the audience, made a deceptively simple and hugely important point, stating “I don’t really understand why we can’t all just be human together”, Pat did his best to pull things back to dichotomy territory with a cringingly simplistic remark on “the feminist lobby”.

Clearly, it is the purpose of programs like The Frontline to present a topic in a way that engaged and sustains viewers’ attention. The black-versus-white format works well in this context. However, this format is seriously damaging when it comes to issues as complex as the under-representation of women in public life. How many viewers watched the credits roll after last night’s program believing that they had listened to a serious debate and feeling that they had gained a more rounded perspective on this issue? Several, I am sure, as The Frontline presents itself as a serious, analytical program and is widely regarded as such.

Sadly, despite the excellence of the individual participants, what we saw last night on The Frontline was an over-simplified, tabloid-style representation of the issue that does justice to nothing and nobody: black versus white, women versus men. Sad, and ironic too, because one thing that unwittingly emerged from the program was that issues such as the lack of formal paternity leave and the gender pay gap, as referred to by Jody Garry, affect everyone, not just one gender or the other. Fathers in Ireland cannot take proper paternity leave, so their partners are obliged to shoulder more of the childcare responsibilities, which reduces women’s ability to participate in the workforce, which means that women’s economic contribution to society appears to be less than men’s, which reinforces a perception of men primarily as breadwinners and producers of economic output, which mitigates against anything that takes them out of the workforce for any length of time, with the result that fathers in Ireland cannot take proper paternity leave.

This illustration of a perfect circular system that ultimately benefits nobody was there in last night’s program. It was the unacknowledged nub of the whole debate. You just had to look very, very hard to find it.

If the format had been one that facilitates nuanced debate and shades of grey – such as allowing speakers to avoid coming down completely on one side or the other – this holistic view of the issue could have come to the fore. It would then be possible to move the discussion to the next level of “What can we do about it?”

As it was, the battle-lines remained clearly drawn, chests were beaten, everyone got their say, and the status quo remained firmly in place. As long as the dualism-based format continues to be the dominant one in current affairs programs, the nubs of many important arguments will continue to go unacknowledged on the airwaves.

Orla Shanaghy is a native of Waterford where she lives and works. Her work has been broadcast on RTÉ Radio One’s Sunday Miscellany and Lyric FM’s Sunday Serenade. She has also been published in The Stinging Fly magazine and in the forthcoming The Sunday Miscellany Anthology 2008-2011. Orla blogs at curmumgeon.wordpress.com.

I hear you. I am glad I missed the program, I wouldn’t had slept very well… But, at least it is still being discussed. As long as the gender bias is discussed, even if only pseudo intelligently, there is hope. I have noticed, in my last 30 years, that the serious discussion has been take off the table. (I am a Puertorican with american citizenship, and lived in Chicago for 10 years). The last two generations of women are starting to take for granted, and are rejecting “feminism” as a thing of the past. Perhaps they have a point. The movement needs a name change for the sake of survival. But I have also notice, the situation going backwards again– in my lifetime. Men and some women are starting to feel comfortable, talking about how women are not capable of things, how we whine a lot, and should just be happy with what we have accomplished. Just when were starting to show up at the corporate table, we have started to disappear from them.
A new form of “feminism” (humanism perhaps) needs to start being put out there again– this forum has some serious talent. C’mon gals, its your generations turn to put up a good fight. I am not young anymore but I will march along.

Very much agree with this. I’m a young student and, even at the slight mention or discussion of feminist issues, all you will hear is groaning from men and women alike. Our generation believe that women have made it, we’re equal and just leave it at that, no need to discuss it anymore. It frustrates me beyond belief. What frustrates me most is the negative connotation associated with feminism. People forget that it stands for achieving gender EQUALITY, not female dominance, which anyone I’ve encountered seem to think it does. Simply by expressing my opinions on the gender pay gap, paternity leave, child care and women in politics, I have been jokingly introduced by my friends to people as “the raging feminist”. This lack of seriousness about very serious issues in society is worrying. I agree that perhaps what really needs to change in order for us to get any further is deviating from the term “feminism”, after all it’s only a word. What’s needed really though, is for men and women to recognise the needs of both genders in society and to work towards those TOGETHER. Judging by Monday night’s programme, the needs aren’t all that different.

I totally understand where you’re coming from, but I actually feel really strongly that it’s important to keep the name feminism. To abandon it in favour of “equalism” (or whatever) denies the fact that when it comes to power, women are systematically shut out, at various levels, all over the world. The balance of power is not equal. Gender is still a defining factor in the opportunities given to women everywhere, and removing the gendered nature of the movement – consisting of both men and women – fighting for equality diminishes the importance of this element. Until society in general doesn’t see the default human being as male, and continues to see things that affect women only as niche or special interest, I’ll still call myself a feminist.

I agree totally and absolutely abhor the artifical drawing of battle lines between the sexes. What is good for society is obviously a system of improvements that enhances the lives of both men and women. What purpose would be served by pitching us against each other? I am a feminist because I believe in equality, therefore every man I respect is a feminist too.

I was an invited audience member that night – I commented on the Dutch system that facilitates part-time work (many of you may have by then put a brick through the telly after listening to John Waters for that long and therefore missed me). I was a great pains to stress that a flexible workplace offers life enhancing opportunities for everyone. I really hope I got that point across.

I think this is another downside of the black-versus-white format Eleanor – the panelists, who despite their individual bona fides are there to argue against each other in this format, get lots of airtime, while audience members (invited and non-invited) are more likely to present less polarised argument, but they get less time to speak. I thought your point came across very clearly.

The fact that they had John Waters on to discuss the issue of quotas was a clear indication that the Frontline wasn’t going to take the subject seriously. The Frontline normally has serious panellists. Camille Loftus is clearly an expert and is a very serious and credible person. John Waters however, is a journalist with no particular expertise and who has a history of writing sexist and unfounded material.

It was a complete insult to viewers and to anyone who has educated themselves and worked hard to gain expertise in this area that one of the most important news programmes in the country saw John Waters as an equal and valid counter to the argument for quotas.

It is also very depressing that anyone can go on national television and express the sexist views John Waters did and be engaged with in a serious manner. A white supremacist wouldn’t be given serious air-time in this day and age but blatant misogyny is. He said that the threats of rape from the policemen in the Corrib last week were a result of men seeking to regain some sense of manhood because women have jobs. He said there would be less male suicide if women didn’t work. If these comments were about black people, there would be outrage.

Excellent post about the limitations of packaging important and complex debates as entertainment. The entertainment format makes it almost impossible to posit the multifarious and complex reasoning behind, and justification for, Gender Quotas. I fear we will be decrying the continuing under representation of women, in the upper echelons, of our Nation’s power structures, for generations to come.

Thanks Paul. I’m not convinced that The Frontline is presented as entertainment – part of my issue with it and programs like it is that they are presented as serious debate. If they were intended to be entertainment there at least would be some justification for their superficial treatment of complex issues.

Despite getting lots of negative attention, I find online discussion forums often better venues for political debate than televised events like this. On the online forums other members can demand and offer references to their various claims, which can cut down on the nonsense. In televised debates someone says “studies show” and it ends there, others cannot demand to know what study, and don’t have time to browse it. We’re just meant to take their word for it.

Very open forums can attract lots of radicals, which is risky, but which also blows the debate wide open. Instead of a few familiar old ideas from Irish journalists or activists you get lots of truly original perspectives instead.

Orla, you’ve hit the nail on the head with this. We are encouraged to be in one camp or the other instead of just being human beings together – regardless of sex, race, sexual orientation, social background, educational level, etc. – working together for the good of ALL.

Why do so many people find it so hard to get their heads around that?

Congratulations to everyone – including Eleanor, Rosemary and Jody – who managed to make salient points despite the obvious desire on the part of RTé/Pat Kenny to be divisive. Congratulations, also, to Camille Loftus who managed to be eloquent and articulate despite of John Waters’s mad ramblings.

Thanks Hazel. I find it really odd when people expect me to write & speak only about women being discriminated against. I wrote an article for the Irish Times Health Plus on how schools were failing boys and there was a certain amount of surprise expressed that I had done so….but why wouldn’t I? I have two sons and I do think it’s odd the girls outperform boys consistently – it shouldn’t happen unless the system is flawed and unrepresentative.

Hi Eleanor
Your article is very interesting. I’m a mammy to a son too, so I am curious about the differing, on average, performance in schools. I wonder is the reason children in Ireland start school earlier than the European average to do with the lack of affordable, flexible childcare? (Sorry that’s slightly off the topic here, strange the way so many roads lead to the childcare question!).

Thanks Hazel. I agree totally, well done to the contributors who got their points across despite Pat’s best attempts to deail them. Yes Camille Loftus was a model of calm and logic in the face of the opposite! It must be hard to maintain that within the confrontational format.

Orla I agree completely and am so pleased you wrote about it here today. It’s part of a backlash against feminism to suggest that it’s men v women and it’s been people opposed to gender equality who put it in those terms.

There was a man on nearer the end who had done research into young men’s mental health (at least I think that’s what his research was in) and it sounded like he had interesting things to say about how we fail them by not teaching them how to acknowledge and express emotion. Of course Pat then tried to shoehorn him back to the men v women theme, was this to do with girls?

Soooo frustrating when the male researcher was so clearly not saying that and if he had been given a minute might have suggested ways we could do something about it.

There was a Masculinities programme piloted (and is used in some secondary schools I think) which was about getting boys/young men to think about themselves (and learn to acknowledge and express emotion). Guess who lobbied against it? Not women or feminists but John Waters fellow-travellers, Catholic conservatives (Catholic secondary parents association) who were uncomfortable with opening up the types of gender roles that young men/boys might want to explore.

Much easier to blame women/feminists – that’s what putting the argument in women v men terms is about.

Glad you found the article interesting. Yes I think lack of childcare is an element. I have a Russian friend who lives here with one child and says that in Russia school attendence age is closer to 7 or 8. Must say I love having sons – they’re great fun!

There were several things I found particularly irritating in Monday’s programme, and most of them began and ended with John Waters.

His assertion that women choose “caring” roles because they’re naturally more caring is based on what, exactly? Not science, anyway. Then, “four out of five suicides are men” because of the feminist agenda. By his own logic, couldn’t we say that four out of five suicides are men because men are more naturally violent? (We’re too busy nursing people, us women.)

To be honest I found it all a little tame – I would have liked to have seen some radical ideas, instead of rehashing the same old theories, but the problem is, when feminists get radical, we’re just fitting into a very old stereotype; when men get radical, sure, they’re just being strong men!

I also totally reject the idea that men are suffering because of women. I’m sure men are suffering because of a shift in society that sees their traditional roles being eroded, but shouldn’t society provide structures that allow them to deal with these changes, rather than attempting to shoehorn them into traditional roles that no longer exist?

Furthermore, “how would you tell your man to be more masculine?” was just insulting. I’m not the token girlfriend – and I have never referred to anyone I was with as “my man”. Nor have I ever suggested that someone be more masculine. Masculinity is a genetic trait, as is femininity; it’s enough that he has a penis. If we need a man to beat his chest in order to be masculine, our problems are greater than we think.

I think the “four in five suicides” moment was when I threw my cat off my lap and switched off. I wonder what relation the high suicide rate among males has to the difficulty in coming out in Ireland? I can count two teenage boys in my social circle who killed themselves (at least in part) because they were gay, bullied, and had no support from their very Catholic families. Probably a statistical anomaly, but it is a point I rarely hear made when male teenage suicide rates come up.

@Rosemary – I was shouting at the screen for you to slap Pat Kenny. His whole demeanor changed when he was talking to you, and his weird, jocular attitude made it pretty clear that he didn’t take the issue at hand seriously. What “feminist lobby”??

Interesting post, Orla, about the presentation of the programme…current affairs or entertainment…it reminded me to be a more critical viewer in the future.

I was in the audience on Monday night and thoroughly enjoyed both Rosemary and Eleanor’s points. I wish they could have spoken for longer without Pat butting in. I also balked at the “my man” question and thought, what cheek.

Yeah, the way John Waters brought up suicide was deeply offensive, not to mention misleading. I was really hoping someone would put up their hand to comment and hang him out to dry with the parasuicide statistics. For example, in 2009, 527 people commited suicide, the majority of whom were male. In that same year over 11,000 people were hospitalised having attempted suicide, of whom THE MAJORITY WERE FEMALE. What would ole JW have said to that? Kind of throws his monopoly on suffering out the window and leaves him without a relevant argument.

Even aside from the relevance of his point, the way he framed it was highly misguided and inflammatory: he essentially said men are dying because society prioritises/coddles women, the implication being of course that female progress is damaging society. As Susan Leavy commented above, replace any of his comments about the downsides of “female progress” with “black progress” and there would be uproar.

{{An aside: Feminist Handy Hint! I use this analogy (replace-female-with-black) all the time in arguments/discussions where people are oblivious to the misogyny in comments or actions e.g. someone who found the andy gray thing a bit harmless. It’s really helpful as a way to help other people look at a situation objectively. Once they see that it would be racist, some of the ambiguity is resolved in their minds because they can see that it’s inherently discriminatory. I’m happy to say it’s helped me abbreviate many frustrating arguments and perhaps informed peoples’ perceptions of themselves along the way}}

Anyway, I’ve seen the same old trope elsewhere on the internet (generally trotted out by a certain breed of disgruntled older reader in comments to the British dailies) but was genuinely shocked to see it being given credence on the national broadcaster’s key current affairs TV programme. I’m tempted to complain to RTE.

Though I must say, it was really funny when Waters referenced his (ridiculous) bald analogy for a second time and the cameraman cheekily honed in on a very uncomfortable expression on the face of the bald dude who’d commented earlier in the show. Ha ha.

Wholeheartedly applaud this post, the oppositional setup is totally dated and self-defeating because it alienates people on both supposed “sides.” Equality for all!

From psychology anyway, we learned that it may be because men tend moreso to use more lethal methods, like shooting or hanging and so, basically are more successful. Women tend moreso to attempt suicide through methods like pill overdose, hence the hospitalisation.

I don’t know, there are so many factors that it’s difficult for suicidoligists to quantify, but some of the statistics and demographics are telling.

Whether someone survives an attempt can be a matter of luck and the method they choose. Men most commonly attempt suicide by shooting, hanging and drowning, whereas females are far more likely to attempt suicide by overdose.

Also the vast majority of suicide attempts are young people. Men are most likely to attempt suicide between the ages of 15-24, this is also the age they are most likely to die by it. Women are most likely to attempt suicide between 15-24 but they are most likely to die by it in their early 50s.

There aren’t many studies exploring gravity of intent (sorry I can’t think of a more neutral phrase to convey what I mean) but I think the statistics support the possibility that a substantial proportion of adolescents who attempt suicide do so as a cry for help, rather than with the intent to actually die.

So it’s a complex and occasionally nebulous field of study, but (just my opinion, inferred from reading a lot of studies and reports, as well a very small amount of anecdotal evidence from people I know who’ve attempted suicide) method and intent seem to be the big factors causing the discrepancy.

Yeah these points make sense. (I wondered vaguely later if career made a difference too. I know that vets and farmers have unusually high suicide rates, partly because of their access to barbituates or guns. So maybe it’s partly just a coincidence, that those careers which involve access to leathal means happen presently to be populated mostly by men? Just a guess, though.)

The statistics you quote for hospitalisations due to suicide attempts lend a whole new aspect to the issue (for me anyway) Tiggyt – thanks for that.
There were actually quite a few funny moments in Monday’s program – besides the “bald” thing which was a real “funny if it wasn’t tragic” moment, I was tickled pink by JW’s comment on being “manhandled into equality”.
By the way did anyone else pick up on his “straight white male” remarks??

J Waters statement that stood out for me as well was when he said “Men are protectors and providers. They have to choose jobs that don’t necessarily suit them”. I was very surprised no one pulled him up on that narrow-minded ‘this is fact’ kind of notion of old fashioned, hegemonic ideals of masculinity.

Who the hell is John Waters anyway? He pops up everywhere but no one can tell you what it is he actually does other than write a few songs for the Eurovision now and again. Pity he wouldn’t sing then instead of talk political shyte.

I think that programmes like The Frontline are among the worst on TV at present. There is way too much of this kind of stuff. Banks, banks and more bloody banks!! When you sit down to watch TV, I think you want entertainment and not this rubbish. Extended news, political programmes, documentaries on the current corruption. No wonder people are so depressed and disillushioned and cannot be positive. This constant barage of negativity has got to end.

The whole irony is the likes of Pat Kenny are among the rich elite who are taking huge salaries and keeping others down. On top of this, he bores us with this pointless, boring and terrible show. Next to Kenny, Ryan Tubridy is a god. Tubridy at least has the sense to be positive.

And to show the pointlessness of the Frontline: when it does not talk about banks, we get some stupid divisive topic like this!! What about more important topics like what’s going on in Libya, Iraq or the Persian nations? What about some entertaining edition (even Joe Duffy manages this on the radio) now and again with music and song?

Irish TV needs to see more of Crystal Swing, showband legends who are still alive, Imelda May, and all the others who are not yet discovered, etc. in the music and in comedy we need Pat Shortt, Jedward, Jon Kenny and Brendan O’Carroll. We need to see less of Pat Kenny, John Bowman (well, we got our wish there – Questions and Answers was axed thank god but replaced by Frontline unfortunately!), Sean O’Rourke, and others like this.

The Frontline is a terrible piece of Telly. It combines the worst of Pat Kenny’s Late Late Show and John Bowe Mann’s Questions and Answers

John Waters is a nobody who takes up too much time on RTE’s various shows.

Give me Iranian and Syrian TV anyday. TV programmes praising their politicians and telling us all the great things they do would make a welcome change !! I guess if Pat Kenny or John Bowe Mann were from Syria, Iran, Libya or China, they would be unemployed – the right place for them !! And we in the West think we are the best!